Articles Posted by ALPAPilot

By all accounts, the Federal Aviation Administration’s "tarmac rule" has dramatically reduced the number of passengers who are stuck inside an aircraft on the ground for three hours or more. Violations of the rule, which went into effect last April, can cost airlines $27,500 per passenger, or $2.75 million for a planeload of 100 people going nowhere fast. In fact, there were just three cases nationwide of three-hour tarmac delays in December — compared with 34 the previous December, according to the federal Department of Transportation, the FAA’s parent agency. But critics say an unintended consequence of the rule is...

An RAF Nimrod aircraft has joined an international search for the pilot of a light aircraft which ditched in the sea during a storm off Iceland today, Thursday 21 February 2008. The Nimrod was scrambled from its base at RAF Kinloss to search for the pilot who is in a survival suit in freezing conditions 100 miles (161km) south of Iceland. The Piper Cherokee PA 28 aircraft was routing from the Icelandic capital Rekyjavik to Wick in the North-East of Scotland. The pilot told Iceland Air Traffic he was at 9,000 feet (1.7km) at 1122 hrs. Seventeen minutes later he...